Thunder left searching for answers

Scott Brooks heard for two days he needed to be a little more like Gregg Popovich, and Tuesday night he tried. He instructed his guys to foul the opponent’s shakiest free-throw shooter, boos be danged. He sent his hair-on-fire super-sub in to take over and change the momentum. And he even let his face get a little red once or twice.

But Floggo-El-Tiago didn’t quite measure up to Hack-A-Clipper. The James Harden boost didn’t quite measure up to Manu Ginobili’s. And when the time came for some Pop-like motivation in the fourth quarter, Brooks might as well have been telling his team he needed some Nestea.

For all the ways Brooks’ Oklahoma City Thunder proved themselves a worthy adversary of a team vying for its fifth championship, the details of the Spurs’ 120-111 victory in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals proved they’re still a few inches short of closing the gap.

“We just have to figure it out,” Brooks said.

But unless he can find a Spurs blemish no one in the NBA has for the past 48 days, the mystery of how the Thunder get back into the series might be unsolvable.

In a way, the most discouraging thing for Oklahoma City might be that so many things went its way Tuesday. Harden scored 30 points on 10-of-13 shooting. Russell Westbrook rediscovered his aggression and scored 27. Kevin Durant found his stroke and poured in 31. The Thunder’s big men controlled the offensive glass for long stretches.

And still, the Spurs led by as many as 22 points in the third quarter.

“We can’t put ourselves in that situation,” Harden said. “We fought hard, but it was too much to overcome.”

Even Brooks’ decision to intentionally foul Tiago Splitter — which everyone agreed served its purpose of slowing down the Spurs — didn’t have much of an impact. Oklahoma City sent Splitter to the line 10 times in a little more than a minute span late in the third quarter, and he missed five of the foul shots.

At the end of the run, however, the Thunder did not cut a point off the Spurs’ 16-point lead.

“It kind of threw their rhythm out a little bit, and he stepped up and made (five) of them,” Brooks said. “But if the opportunity comes to do it again, we will.”

He’d also love another opportunity to ride a hot streak from Harden, who bounced back from a dismal Game 1 by dominating in stretches of Game 2. In addition to his 30 points, he had seven rebounds and four assists, and explained his strategy was simple.

“I thought if I played hard, things were going to come my way,” Harden said. “I wasn’t really worried about making shots. I just wanted to play hard and really get after it.”

It wasn’t enough, though. And when it was over, they were left grasping for the only positives they could find.

“We’ve always been a resilient group,” Durant said. “It’s tough to go down 0-2. But we get an opportunity to go home.”